Get into the (five-star) groove at The Grove
If you’re going on a 20-hour mini-break, children in tow, the need to deliver is pressing; does The Grove have what it takes? Yes, it does.
We can’t agree. Is our Grove Hotel highlight the excellent (read: harmonious, plates-cleared, mostly-seated) family supper? Or the impeccable hotel breakfast that makes a mockery of most other buffet breakfasts? Or even the centuries-old battalion of towering trees? Which I can confirm are no less glorious in torrential rain. The one thing we do agree on is that we love our archery lesson, which we troop off to minutes after arriving.
Enjoyment is not dented by the rain; we’re under a canopy of trees and, as our instructor/cheerleader Harrison points out, the weather means we have the lesson to ourselves rather than sharing his words of wisdom (and tireless arrow-retrieving hands) with other people. Our eight-year-old is delighted with a bull’s-eye and feels like he’s on a film set; our daughter (just old enough, having turned six a week ago) finds it harder, but Harrison is hugely encouraging and she’s so proud when she does eventually hit the target.
It’s over too quickly. “Can we do it again tomorrow?”, says our daughter, hopefully. “OK, what else can we do?!” Well, on another visit we could head off for axe throwing; this time round, unfortunately we’re a week too early for The Grove’s stand-out school holiday activities – suitably themed for Halloween, Christmas etc.
The weather’s getting increasingly too grim for a bike ride, tennis or the playground, so we head over to the family pool at Anouska’s Kids’ Club (three-hour sessions for two to nine-year-olds, OFSTED registered, open daily during holidays and on Saturdays year-round). A family pool at a luxe country hotel is always a good idea – I’ve been that adult on a romantic weekend cursing the parents desperate to wear out their screeching offspring in the spa pool. Even ‘family hours’ don’t help much with that. Bonus points here for fun animal floaties and great changing rooms.
The estate is sprawling, at 300 acres of Hertfordshire countryside, taking in a golf course (which hosted the 2016 British Masters), the gorgeous Sequoia Spa, woodland trails, a huge Walled Garden and kitchen garden, as well as 200+ hotel rooms and suites. It’s big enough that we refer to the printed map a few times, but that also means it’s big enough not to feel crammed with guests. Far from it.
The quick turnaround in our room (Deluxe, with garden view, pictured below) turns out to be not that quick as the kids start to explore, scramble and jump (sorry) on the massive bed. It’s stylish, neutral and well-designed; on that latter point, a double sofa bed, so often uncomfortable and hard to share, is eschewed in favour of one comfy camp bed and a sofa with sides that fold up and act as bumpers to stop kids falling out of an unfamiliar bed.
Our room looks out over the formal gardens and an incredible tree that we discover was one of the first black walnuts ever to be brought to Britain, presented to the Earl of Clarendon as a sapling by the explorer Captain James Cook in the 1770s. (“The olden days! Mummy were you alive then?”) The Grade-II listed Georgian manor is the former home of the Villiers family – the Earls of Clarendon – with a history of peaks and troughs dating back to at least the 1500s; my son and I are intrigued to find out there’s archaeological proof of pottery from 3000 BC.
There’s also pretty good evidence that The Grove kickstarted the mini-break trend: when the fifth Earl became secretary to Queen Victoria in 1846, he started to throw decadent house parties for the Queen and British gentry, who’d travel the 18 miles from London to The Grove after the working week – which The Times described as ‘weekending’.
The Villiers family had to sell just before the Great Depression and, by the end of the century, The Grove was in a sorry state, but its weekending potential didn’t go unnoticed. It’s now 20+ years since it reopened and it remains a stand-out option for Londoners wanting to get out and away, but not out-out or Cotswolds-away, and dine like royalty. There are five places to eat (at a minimum; in the summer, there are al fresco options as well, including fun hot air balloon outdoor dining). Next time, Grove, sans enfants I hope, you’ll find me making a beeline for Madhu’s Indian-British delights.
This time round, we’re well fed in The Stables, a very relaxed spot which also serves golfers. At 6pm, the sprinkling of kids are all seated and seemingly satisfied: not a screen in sight. Ours devour crudites, hummus and chicken spring rolls to start, as if we’ve not fed them for days (such is the effect of a good long swim) then tuck into full roasts. My husband and I relax with a great bottle of New Zealand white, sharing burrata and chopped salad, then following suit with roasts. The finally-flagging children are revived when they hear us ask our waiter if their strawberry sundaes can be sent to our room. Those, plus a movie in their mini dressing gowns, equals kid heaven.
An overnight stay, with the standard 3pm check-in and 11am departure equals just 20 hours but, although tempted, there’s no point staying up all night to maximise the fun; a ‘sleep is for the weak’ approach definitely won’t work for our under-10s. We sleep well and get down to breakfast as early as we can.
And what a breakfast. The two-level Glasshouse restaurant is gorgeously cosy and grown-up at the same time, with creative plate and cutlery-themed artworks that delight the kids. And the food. I’ve tried a lot of buffets during my decades of hotel reviews and am often left thinking about the amount of waste there must be, or the lack of imagination in laying out yet another blandly ‘continental’ spread. Not here.
This is such an indulgent, well-curated spread that an a la carte menu is rendered pointless. Perhaps because it’s catering to 200+ rooms, it can afford to be generous. Pancakes, waffles, croissants and French toast; sausages, bacon, eggs and more; pleasingly presented fruit, savoury goodies galore. No unnecessary bells and whistles; just excellence across the board. I manage two full plates worth of the Grove’s wares and wish I had space left for another.
The Grove, take a bow. You know exactly what you’re doing. Doing it with such aplomb means that no one leaves without wanting to come back. And excellent service follows us all the way home when I unpack and realise a beloved stuffed toy must have drowned in the sea of cushions and duvets the kids had nested into for pre-breakfast TV. One call later, Pimba is posted home first class, free of charge, and received by a delighted child who then doesn’t miss a beat, suggesting I should not have called to enquire about the penguin’s wellbeing. “Then we’d have had to go back to The Grove again to get her!”
Rooms from £370 per night, visit thegrove.co.uk
